I'm heading back from visiting my girlfriend and her family in Eugene for the holidays, and my love affair with Oregon is making it very hard to turn down all of the money and the culture L and C would provide, but I remain worried about my ability to score one of the elusive PDX biglaw jobs with my lack of ties. I love it here, and Bend and Eugene are similarly great towns in which I wouldn't mind working, but the employment prospects for someone in my boat are worrisome.

grtbooks91 wrote:I'm heading back from visiting my girlfriend and her family in Eugene for the holidays, and my love affair with Oregon is making it very hard to turn down all of the money and the culture L and C would provide, but I remain worried about my ability to score one of the elusive PDX biglaw jobs with my lack of ties. I love it here, and Bend and Eugene are similarly great towns in which I wouldn't mind working, but the employment prospects for someone in my boat are worrisome.

Anyone else in a similar situation?

I love Oregon, but I'm born and bred in New Jersey (and lived in Denver).....so, it's looking very difficult to get any connections in Oregon before committing. I'll probably be sticking to the New Jersey/New York area. I completely understand your quandary.

grtbooks91 wrote:I'm heading back from visiting my girlfriend and her family in Eugene for the holidays, and my love affair with Oregon is making it very hard to turn down all of the money and the culture L and C would provide, but I remain worried about my ability to score one of the elusive PDX biglaw jobs with my lack of ties. I love it here, and Bend and Eugene are similarly great towns in which I wouldn't mind working, but the employment prospects for someone in my boat are worrisome.

Anyone else in a similar situation?

Born and raised in Bosnia-Herzegovina for the first 10 years of my life, but have spent the last 12 years in Ohio so I feel your worries. However, I did e-mail L&C about this issue and the response I got was from their Public Interest Law Coordinato. I won't share the entire e-mail due to privacy issues, but I will say the things I got out of it were and paraphrase some of his wording:

a) He (the coordinator) has not seen a difference between people who grew up in Portland and people who came to Lewis & Clark from elsewhere for law school in how they are treated in the job market. The difference seems to come from where you attended law school more than where you grew up.

b) L&C draws about 60 to 70% of its students from out of state, but 60 to 70% of graduates want to stay in the Pacific NW after graduating, many with environmental law in mind. This can make for an oversupply of environmental lawyers.

c) For law firms, doing well in law school makes a big difference in getting their attention, for the government and non profit positions, getting your hands into the work makes a big difference.

And finally, a direct quote from the e-mail:

Attending Lewis & Clark should be sufficient to expose you to the chances to make good ties to the local employment market, but that alone does not make everything easy. Once you are local, you still need to reach out and build your network while you are here and sometimes it does come down to being at the right spot at the right time.

Hope these points help you, as they did help me in feeling a bit easier. I'm also considering going to the ASW to get a "feel" for Portland, at which point I think my final decision will be made to attend L&C unless another school blows me away.